Shuhei Yoshida on Resisting Sony's Live Service Strategy

Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida reveals he would have resisted Sony's aggressive push into live-service gaming. Yoshida, former President of SIE Worldwide Studios (2008-2019), voiced concerns to Kinda Funny Games about the inherent risks Sony acknowledged in this venture.

This statement comes amidst a period of significant challenges for PlayStation's live-service titles. While Helldivers 2 achieved remarkable success, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever (12 million copies in 12 weeks), other ventures have faltered.

Concord, a notable failure, lasted mere weeks before being shut down due to extremely low player numbers. This resulted in a substantial financial loss for Sony; Kotaku reported an initial development investment of approximately $200 million, a sum insufficient to cover the entire development, IP rights, or acquisition of Firewalk Studios.

This follows the cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer project and, more recently, two unannounced live-service games – a God of War title from Bluepoint and another from Bend Studio (Days Gone developers).

Yoshida, departing Sony after 31 years, hypothetically challenged the current strategy in his interview. He stated that, had he been in CEO Hermen Hulst's position, he would have resisted the live-service focus, explaining the allocation of resources away from proven single-player franchises like God of War as a potentially unwise financial decision.

He acknowledged Sony's increased investment in live-service games following his departure, emphasizing the inherent risk and the low probability of success in a highly competitive market. While Helldivers 2's success was unexpected, Yoshida highlighted the unpredictable nature of the industry and expressed hope for the overall strategy's eventual success. He mused that his opposition to this direction might have contributed to his departure.

Sony's financial reports reflect this mixed bag. President, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki attributed Concord's failure to insufficiently early user testing and internal evaluations, highlighting the need for earlier intervention in the development process. He also cited Sony's "siloed organization" and Concord's unfortunate release window (close to Black Myth: Wukong) as contributing factors to its poor performance.

Senior vice president Sadahiko Hayakawa further emphasized the contrasting outcomes of Helldivers 2 and Concord, stressing the importance of sharing lessons learned across studios to improve development management and post-launch content support. He reiterated Sony's intention to balance its portfolio with established single-player titles alongside riskier live-service ventures.

Despite these setbacks, several PlayStation live-service games remain under development, including Bungie's Marathon, Guerrilla's Horizon Online, and Haven Studio's Fairgame$.